


Snippets from Time is a Test of Trouble

by KageKashu



Series: Time is a Test of Trouble (But Not a Remedy) [3]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gender Roles, M/M, Scars, another difference between dwarves and hobbits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKashu/pseuds/KageKashu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the answers to age old questions are answered... Or, in which things that I didn't get into in the original fic get a ficlet of explaining. :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Discussion of Gender Roles

**Author's Note:**

> Coda: Part 2 (After the Battle - A Journey), Chapter 5 (Tales and Nightime Escapades)

"Just because it wears a dress, doesn't mean it's a lass!" After several seconds, he added, slightly more seriously, "Merry never had to find that out the hard way - he was there when Pervinca had me convinced that you had to wear a nice dress to go to proper tea. T'would have been funny to see his face otherwise, finding out that one of the lasses wasn't a lass." 

Distracted for a moment, Thorin's brows knotted together. "That's common in the Shire?" 

"What do you mean?" asked Pippin, gnawing determinedly on some dried fruit that had found its way to his hands (courtesy of Fíli). "Lads in dresses, or what? Because... Well, that I've noticed, when I was in Gondor, I hardly saw a single dress, but they had sent all the women and children away..." The fruit was proving a bit too leathery, but Pippin figured that if he gave up now, he wasn't ever going to finish eating it. "I don't know about dwarves, but hobbits know that a frock, or a dress does not a lass make. Then again, the sum of your parts doesn't always make you a lad or a lass, either." 

"There aren't many female dwarves," began Fíli, his brows puckered in thought, but he was interrupted by Bilbo's laugh. 

"See, you've already gotten it wrong," chuckled the older hobbit. "'The sum of your parts' is male or female, you see. Lad or lass, that's more of a life choice. And wearing a dress... Well, that is something else entirely." 

"So, if it's female, is it always called a lass?" asked Pippin, grinning. He already had a good idea of what would be said. After all, between the nine of them, the fellowship had had many unusual discussions. 

"Yes," said Thorin, frowning nearly as much as Fíli. On Fíli, however, it was almost purely confusion. On Thorin... It was dawning understanding. He eyed Bilbo suspiciously. "That means that any of you could be female, and I would never have known?" 

Fíli coughed, choking on laughter. "Sorry, Uncle, but I've seen all of them naked! While you were off being all majestic, or whatever it is you do when everyone suddenly decides that it's bath time... So, unless hobbits are significantly different from the rest of us, they're all male." 

Pippin had been stifling a giggle throughout this, but let it out fully once Fíli finished. "I'd always wondered about Frodo, though. He always seemed to get on with the lasses best. I figure they thought he was one of them." 

"So, the circumstances of your birth dictate such things in dwarven society," mused Bilbo wonderingly. 

"It's the same with men, that I've noticed. Merry was telling me about Éowyn, and how she seemed more a lad, underneath it all, but she wore dresses, and got angrier and angrier each day..." He shrugged and grimaced. 

"You do realize that we said nothing of the sort," grumbled Fíli. 

Pippin waved him off. "It was your reaction that gave it away. But your lasses get to do all the same things the lads get to, right?" This he was curious about. Gimli had never fully explained to him what the lady dwarves did. 

"Pretty much," agreed Thorin. "The only reason Dís isn't in direct line for the throne is because she removed herself from it." As much as Thorin loved his sister, he had always thought that this was a rash move on her part. However, "I think she liked Ered Luin," was all he added. 

"So it isn't the same as it is with men?" Pippin pursed his lips. "That's nice to know. Gimli said something about men never being able to tell your lads from the lasses, and Strider implied that it was because the ladies have beards too?" 

"Rín had a beard," agreed Bilbo. "And it took me a bit to realize she was a lass, too." 

Kíli, Merry and Haldir returned just as Pippin was beginning to wonder (Legolas hadn't been very forthcoming, and early on had refrained from joining such conversations) just how gender roles worked with the elves, so as soon as he saw Haldir, he asked, "Just how do elves do those things?" And Haldir froze, eyes wide, as a flush of crimson began to suffuse he face. That was when Pippin began giggling again. He couldn't believe he had forgotten the way the three of them had run off (technically, that was "the way Kíli had dragged the other two off"). He decided to help the elf out a bit. "Do your lads occasionally wear dresses, and we just can't tell because of how gauzy and dresslike everything that isn't pants is?" 

Haldir recovered, but now he looked confused. For that matter, so did Kíli and Merry. "I'm certain I have no idea what you mean," said the elf, bemused. 

"We were discussing gender roles between our cultures," clarified Thorin. "Pippin is understandably curious as to how we both differ from the elves in that respect." 

"And men," he piped up. "Men think that their lasses can't do the same things their lads do. Hobbits and dwarves don't do it the same, but..." He shrugged. "What one trying to ask is, are there things other than, say, child bearing, that are exclusive to each gender?" 

Haldir appeared to give this some thought. After a time, he sat, and said, "There are duties and behaviors that are traditionally ascribed to our females, as there are those traditionally ascribed to our males. They are not necessarily exclusive to each gender; rather that such things seem to attract males or females to themselves, and more of one than the other." 

It was a stilted, diplomatic answer. "Does Lord Celebron actually do anything?" asked Pippin, and laughing, Merry walloped him in the shoulder. 

"Lord Celebron does many things," Haldir began with a smile, "many things that I'm sure his lady doesn't appreciate. His hobbies do occasionally get out of hand." 

"Is that why everyone was looking for Lady Galadriel's cock when we were there before?" asked Merry. Although the discussion lasted another hour or so, it wasn't long before everyone decided to call it a night... Leaving Bilbo as the last awake, as he was taking first watch that night.


	2. Hobbits and Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hobbits don't normally carry many scars...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coda Part 1 (Before the War - The Ring), Capter 7 (Messes and Mead)
> 
> Also, very short. Bit it is a snippit, so I guess I'm going with that.

Scars are nothing new for dwarves. Fíli was used to seeing scars. Burns and battle scars were as common as the callouses on their hands. The first time he had seen Bilbo Baggins's bare body he had been shocked by just how unmarked it was. 

Every single mark on the gentlehobbit's soft body was _their fault_ (Fíli had no way of knowing that this wasn't quite true), and Fíli wondered if Thorin even realized that. 

Merry and Pippin were different again. Even fully dressed, one would have to be blind not to see the thick brown scar that ran into the hairline on Merry's temple. Their shins and ankles were marked noticeably as well, and Bilbo, though perturbed, thought to say nothing of it, other than very quietly, assuaging Fíli's curiosity when asked about it - "Hobbits don't... We don't normally get scars from... from worse than, oh, accidents. Because, well, we don't really fight, see?" 

Fíli did see. Or, he thought he saw. 

In spite of Merry's more visible scar (the one he actively tried to hide with his hair), Pippin appeared the worse off in that regard. Merry had a couple of lines on his back, but the younger hobbit... At some point, Pippin had been flogged, and not with any care to his survival. 

If any doubt had existed in his mind about the resilience of hobbits, it disappeared as he surreptitiously watched water sluice down that pale skinned back, over the reddened ridges of scar tissue, washing away the residue of the hobbit's earlier fall. The marks were recent - no more than a year old - but fully healed. 

Fíli wanted to ask, but the hobbits' cheerful conversation (something about feet) would be interrupted, and he might have to watch that sweet and cheerful, open expression of Pippin's close off, his eyes darken as he recalled whatever had happened. 

They didn't know each other well enough for Fíli to ask such questions, though he didn't doubt Pippin would answer. 

As much as he wanted to ask, though, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering where Pippin might have gotten such an injury... Maybe you should rewatch or reread Two Towers. I took the threats made and well, Pippin didn't make it through that mess unscathed in this 'verse.


	3. Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The various races of Middle Earth don't smile the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extremely short. Introspective.

Elves don't smile like hobbits do. They don't smile like men or dwarves, either. The slash of a grin, the flash of teeth, it's the threat of a predator, not a smile at all. It is hardly known, but even the thin smiles, the truly friendly ones, aren't natural to an elvish face; it is something they learned from men. That particular expression only graced the faces of those who had spent much time amongst other races. 

Haldir was one of these. When he smiled, he kept his teeth mostly concealed, especially around his kin. His brothers, particularly, found his smiles unnerving. Perhaps it was a bad habit, but he wasn't about to stop, not when it made dealing with the other peoples of Middle Earth just a touch easier. It made him seem less cold, less alien. 

Dealing with the hobbits made him glad of this decision. They smiled in the manner of men; quick, friendly grins that showed off teeth, little, lingering smiles when they were lost in thought. 

Instead of baring their teeth in a grin when angered, they did so in a grimace, and Haldir learned more about hobbits and their facial expressions in that one incident (Merry's face mobile through various expressions, starting with mild surprise and ending in that angry grimace) than he had from all his years walking among men. Men, whose faces made just about the same expressions as the hobbits' did. 

Dwarves were different yet again. It seemed, sometimes, that their teeth were always showing. Bofur, in particular, had a tendency to grin open-mouthed, talking all the while, whereas Thorin, the most reserved dwarf he had met, had these little toothy smirks that seemed challenging, but not angry. Anger on a dwarf was a snarl, not a grimace, not a grin. Thorin occasionally fell into that expression as well, but for someone that others took as being a very angry creature, he didn't snarl that often at all. Bifur, on the other hand, seemed to smile like an elf; which Haldir found to be quite odd. 

It took observation, but Haldir was getting more confident in his ability to read his companions' faces. He was also getting more of an understanding of the differences between their races... And recognizing just how much of the animosity between them was as much the fault of elves as it was of dwarves.

**Author's Note:**

> If there is any part in the regular fics, that you feel needs more explanation, or if you just want to know what's going on with who at a certain point, drop me a line, and I'll see what I can do for you. :) That is what this fic is for.


End file.
